Dispenser for web of perforated toweling sheets

ABSTRACT

A hard rolled web of paper toweling or the like has spaced transverse rows of perforations defining separate sheets. A dispenser for advancing the web from its storage cabinet comprises a lever which does not directly actuate the web but stores energy in a spring. After predetermined handle movement, a trip releases the spring for actuation of a feed roll to eject a precisely predetermined length of web. When a new roll is inserted, the remaining end of the old roll is ejected along with corresponding components of the new roll, it being found that this disposition of the remainder of the original web satisfies consumers by temporarily supplying multiple plies, thus using such a remainder to good advantage by tending to prevent consumers from re-cycling the lever and spring to withdraw a second length of toweling.

United States Patent Krueger et a1.

[ 1 June 27, 1972 [54] DHSPENSER FOR WEB OF PERFORATED TOWELING SHEETS [72] Inventors: Archie S. Krueger; Norman J. Slye, both of Green Bay, Wis.

[73] Assignee: Alwin Manufacturing Company, Inc.,

Green Bay, Wis.

[22] Filed: Feb. 3, 1970 [21] App]. No.2 8,235

[52] US. Cl ..226/129, 242/5553, 312/39 [51] Int. Cl. .L ..A47k 10/38, B65h 17/22 [58] Field ofSearch ..242/55.53;226/127,128,129, 226/130, 133; 312/38, 39; 225/192 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,586,835 2/1952 Leger ..225/106 X Batlas et a1 ..226/129 X Primary Examiner-George F. Mautz Assistant Examiner-Gregory A. Walters Attorney-Wheeler, House & Wheeler [5 7] ABSTRACT A hard rolled web of paper toweling or the like has spaced transverse rows of perforations defining separate sheets. A dispenser for advancing the web from its storage cabinet comprises a lever which does not directly actuate the web but stores energy in a spring. After predetermined handle movement, a trip releases the spring for actuation of a feed roll to eject a precisely predetermined length of web. When a new roll is inserted, the remaining end of the old roll is ejected along with corresponding components of the new roll, it being found that this disposition of the remainder of the original web satisfies consumers by temporarily supplying multiple plies, thus using such a remainder to good advantage by tending to prevent consumers from re-cycling the lever and spring to withdraw a second length of toweling.

8 Claims, 9 Drawing Figures DISPENSER FOR WEB OF PERFORATED TOWELING SHEETS BACKGROUND OF INVENTION Most towel dispensers are of two types. In one type, pre-cut sheets are dispensed. In another type the toweling is fed from a supply roll and usually severed by pulling it over a cut-off knife. The length of toweling withdrawn by the consumer is not uniform.

SUMMARY OF INVENTION A hard roll of pre-perforated toweling web is mounted in part on a feed roller which, when rotated, advances the end of the web over a crowned roll en route to a discharge opening. To operate the feed roller, a lever is first actuated by the consumer to move through a predetermined stroke. No feed results directly from lever oscillation.

However, the manual oscillation of the lever stores energy in a spring and, in addition, operates through a trip device to retract a feed roll actuator to which the spring is connected. At a predetermined lever position, the trip device releases the actuator from the lever and the return movement thereof under bias of the spring, operates the feed roller. The arrangement makes it impossible to eject more than one length of toweling because the ejection mechanism does not become activated until the lever has been moved through a whole stroke.

The tensioning of the spring involves lever-induced movement of both ends thereof. One end of the spring is connected directly with the lever. Thence the spring passes over a pulley and its other end is connected with a roll-actuating slide. This slide is displaced in a spring tensioning direction by a mechanical connection from the lever through a trip which releases said connection for spring actuation of the slide after the lever has advanced through a predetermined range of movement.

Some users tend automatically to take a second length of toweling on the assumption that the length initially supplied will be inadequate. The cabinet of the instant dispenser is so organized that when it is serviced, the attendant can put a partially used roll of toweling into the top of the cabinet and register the perforations thereof with the perforations of the new roll which he inserts beneath it. Thereupon muIti-plies of toweling are dispensed in each operation and it is found that this tends to satisfy users who might otherwise operate the mechanism a second time. More advantage is gained from using up the residual toweling in this manner than could otherwise be achieved.

Although there is no tear-off knife, the device still depends on tension exerted by the operator to sever the dispensed length of toweling from the rest of the web. If the operator grasps the end of the dispensed web at a corner, the web will tear almost automatically upon the line of perforations. If, however, the operator grasps the end of the dispensed web at or near its center line, the tear-off may be difficult to start in the absence of the herein disclosed arrangement whereby an idler over which the web is tensioned is centrally crowned so that the tension will tend to be concentrated to initiate tear at the center of the web, the tear thereupon spreading in both directions along the line of perforations to the web margins.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS FIG. I is a view in perspective of a dispenser embodying the invention.

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary view in perspective showing the interior of the dispenser as it appears with the front door of the cabinet open and a housing for the actuating mechanism separately fragmentarily illustrated.

FIG. 3 is a view taken in section on the line 3-3 of FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 is a view taken in section through the cabinet from front to rear, portions being broken away and the actuating lever being shown in retracted position.

FIG. 5 is a view similar to FIG. 4 showing the parts as they appear with the actuating lever in its advanced or lowermost position.

FIG. 6 is a view through the cabinet from front to rear approximately in the plane indicated at 6-6 in FIG. 7.

FIG. 7 is a fragmentary view of the cabinet with the front wall broken away.

FIG. 8 is a fragmentary detail view in section on the line 8- 8 of FIG. 6.

FIG. 9 is a view on a reduced scale showing in perspective a portion of a toweling web such as may be dispensed through the cabinet herein disclosed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The hard wound roll 10 from which the web is to be dispensed is mounted between the ends 12 and 14 of a cabinet back 16 to which the front door or wall 18 is pivoted at 20. Within the front wall 18 there is a transverse frame member 22 connecting the end walls 12 and 14 and provided with a dispensing slot 24 with which the slot 26 of the front wall 18 is in registry.

Rotatably mounted by drive shafl 28 is a feed roller 30. The roll 10 is supported in part on the roller 30 and at its rear rests on the bearing strips 32 at the rear wall of the cabinet. The web of supply roll 10 passes clockwise from the front supply roll as viewed in FIG. 6 and is confined between the supply roll and the feed roll 30, passing about the feed roller and being held thereto by pressure roller 34. Beyond the bight of these rollers 30 and 34, the web 38 passes over the centrally crowned idler 40 which is shown in FIG. 6 and separately illus trated in FIG. 8. Beyond the idler the cabinet includes as a part of frame member 22 a guide 42 leading to the discharge openings above described.

At the top of the side walls 12 and 14 attached to the back 16, there are notches 44 which loosely receive a mandrel 46 upon which the core 48 of a partially used supply roll 50 is mounted. A rounded baffle 52 serves as a guide over which the web shown in broken lines at 54 may be drawn to be dispensed with the web 38 as above described.

The towel ejecting or dispensing mechanism will now be described. Space is provided for it between the side wall 14 of the cabinet back and the corresponding side 56 of the front closure 18. Support is provided for some parts on a separately fabricated casing 60 shown in a partially separated position in FIG. 2 and shown in place in FIG. 7.

In the cavity 62 between the cabinet side wall 14 and the gear casing 60 (FIG. 7) the drive shaft 28 carries a pinion 64 which drives shaft 28 in one direction through an overrunning clutch 65. Meshing with the pinion 64 is a rack 68 on the front edge of a slide 70 mounted for vertical reciprocation along a way 72 provided by the parallel guides 74, 76 (FIGS. 3, 4 and 5). Upper and lower spool-shaped rollers 78 and 80 on the slide are guided by members 74 and 76 as best shown in FIG. 3.

The hand lever 82 projects through a slot 84 at the front of the cabinet (FIG. 1). The lever is pivoted at 86 to the bracket 88. The helical spring 90 is connected to the lever near its outer end and passes over a pulley 92 to an anchorage 94 on the slide 70. The downward movement of the lever 92 from the position of FIG. 4 to the position of FIG. 5 elongates the spring 90 both by reason of pulling downwardly on that end of the spring which is connected to the lever and also by reason of forcing downwardly the slide 70 through the release mechanism in the manner presently to be described.

The initial downward movement of lever 82 away from the stop 96 with which the lever is normally engaged (FIG. 4) does not effect any movement of slide 70. The slide is held by spring tension against its own stop 38. However, a pawl 100 on the lever soon engages a roller 102 on slide 70 to depress the slide from the position of FIG. 4 to the position of FIG. 5. As the slide is depressed, both ends of spring 90 will be drawn downwardly. The overrunning clutch between the pinion 64 and shaft 28 will prevent any rotation being imparted to the shaft 28 in the course of this downward manipulation of the manually actuated lever 82.

However, at a predetermined point in the downward movement of lever 82 the arcuate movement of the pawl 100 about the lever pintle 86 will cause the pawl to clear the roller 102 thereby acting as a trip to release downward thrust on the slide and permitting the slide to be propelled abruptly upwardly under the bias of the now tensioned spring 90. To assist in the initiation of this movement, and also to re-set the trip mechanism, an additional spring 106 is desirably included. This spring is mounted on the bracket 108 of casing 60 (see FIGS. 2 and 4). Its free end is in the path of the roller 102 so that the spring 106 is deflected by the roller as the slide 70 descends to the position of FIG. 5. As soon as downward thrust of the pawl 100 on the roller 102 is relieved, the spring 106 throws the roller upwardly in its mounting slot 1 10 (FIGS. 2 to 5). The arrangement is such as to assure that whereas the spool-shaped roller 102 was below the pawl 100 during the downward movement of the lever, it will be biased to a position above the pawl 100 as the slide ascends. This bias on the spool-shaped roller 102 is strictly temporary as will be apparent from FIG. 4 which shows that the spring 106 has been left far behind in the uppermost position of slide 70. When the push lever is actuated downwardly partially (not a full stroke) the rack is not returned to its original position. In other words, you cannot eject toweling by using short quick partial strokes of the lever. Accordingly, in the position of FIG. 4, the roller 102 has returned to the bottom of its slot 110 in a position where it will again be engaged from above by the pawl 100 during the next actuation of the lever 82.

Since the retractive movement of the slide 70 is initiated by the trip mechanism and is mechanically determined by the functioning of the parts above described, the rotation imparted by the rack 68 and pinion 64 to drive shaft 28 will always be uniform to advance a predetermined length of toweling between the feed roll 30 and the. pressure roll 34. As shown in FIG. 9, the toweling 38 discharged from the hard roll is provided at spaced intervals with transverse rows of perforations 120. When the end of the web is delivered from the discharge opening in the cabinet, the user will exert tension on the projecting end 122 and will'thereby pull the web across the crown 124 on the idler 40 to initiate severance of the terminal sheet along one side of the perforations 120.

When the dispensing cabinet is serviced, the partially used roll is replaced by a full one. Instead of being discarded, the partially used roll is mounted at the top of the cabinet as shown at 50 in FIG. 6. The web 54 therefrom is matched with the web from the new supply roll 10 so that the perforations substantially coincide. The two webs are then fed together between rollers 30 and 34 so that, until all of the web of the original roll has been exhausted, the towels fed from the cabinet will be multi-ply.

The length of each towel is carefully chosen to provide an adequate amount of moisture absorbing area but users frequently are unwilling to trust the skill of the manufacturer in this regard and arbitrarily operate the cabinet a second time to receive a second towel. This is wasteful and it has been found that when a multi-ply towel is delivered by superimposing on the new web the toweling remaining in the partially exhausted roll, this tends to satisfy consumers without making it appear to them to be necessary that they operate the cabinet a second time. Consequently, there is a considerable saving effected by this use of the toweling previously thrown away.

We claim:

1. A dispenser for a web from a roll of paper'stock, said dispenser comprising means for supporting the roll, means including a feed roller for dispensing a predetermined length of web from said roll, a driver having driving connection with said feed roller and mounted for movement between advanced and retracted positions, a spring for actuating said driver toward the retracted position and in a direction to dispense a length of web, a hand lever having a mechanically operable trip mechanism and initially connected therethrough for transmitting motion from the hand lever to said driver in a direction to move the driver in' a spring biasing direction toward its advanced position and thereby to bias said spring, and means whereby the mechanically operable trip mechanism is relieved following a predetermined advance of said driver in a spring biasing direction, whereby said driver is freed from said lever for movement subject to the bias of said spring toward the retracted position of the driver and v in a direction for dispensing a length of web.

2. A dispenser according to claim 1 in which said manually operable means comprises a lever and the driver for actuating the feed roll includes a rack with which said spring is connected, and a pinion connected with said feed roll and meshing with said rack.

3. A dispenser according to claim 2 in which said lever is provided with a pawl engaged with said rack for advancing the rack in a spring tensioning direction, said lever having its fulcrum so located with respect to the rack as to disengage said pawl after a predetermined advance of the rack, thereby allowing the spring to retract the rack for actuation of said feed roll.

4. A combination according to claim 1 in which said spring is connected with the lever and the rack and there is a pulley over which an intermediate portion of the spring is trained, the movement of the lever in motion transmitting engagement with the rack serving to tension the spring by pulling both ends thereof.

5. A dispenser for a paper 'web provided at intervals with transverse rows of perforations upon which the web is severable into sheets, said dispenser comprising a cabinet having a dispensing opening and means for supporting a supply roll of said web, means including a feed roller between the supply roll and said opening for advancing toward said opening a predetermined length of said web from said supply roll, spring actuated means for mechanically advancing the feed roller in a web dispensing direction, a manually operable lever, and a motion transmitting connection from the lever to the actuating means and including a lever operated means for moving trip means for releasing the actuating means after a predetermined movement in a spring tensioning direction, the return of said actuating means under tension of saidspring operating said feed roller through a predetermined rotation for advance of a predetermined length of said web.

6. A dispenser according to claim 5 in which the actuating means comprises a slide having rack means and a pinion meshing with the rack teeth and connected with said feed roller, the connection of said pinion to the feed roller including an overrunning clutch.

7. A dispenser according to claim 6 in which the lever is provided with a pawl movable on an arcuate path which for a portion of its travel engages a roller with which the slide is provided, the pawl ultimately clearing said roller and allowing the slide to return independently of the lever for actuation of the feed roller through said clutch.

8. A dispenser comprising a feed roller provided with an overrunning clutch, a pinion mounted to drive the feed roller through said clutch, a rack meshing with the pinion, guide means providing a way along which the rack is reciprocable, a lever having a fulcrum at one side of the way and a manually operable portion at the other side of the way, a spring connected with said rack and biasing it toward a retracted position, and means comprising a pawl on said lever for moving the rack from said retracted position against the bias of said spring, the rack being provided with a roller in the path of movement of said pawl and engaged thereby as said lever is actuated to move the rack, and means mounting the roller for limited movement independently of the rack, said pawl being disengageable from the roller at a predetermined point in the movement of said lever about its fulcrum, and spring means positioned to be engaged by the roller in the course of movement of said rack away from its retracted position, said roller being biased by said spring means preliminary to disengagement of said roller from said pawl and being adapted to eflect independent movement of the roller to a position above the pawl preliminary to the return of the rack toward its retracted position. 5 

1. A dispenser for a web from a roll of paper stock, said dispenser comprising means for supporting the roll, means including a feed roller for dispensing a predetermined length of web from said roll, a driver having driving connection with said feed roller and mounted for movement between advanced and retracted positions, a spring for actuating said driver toward the retracted position and in a direction to dispense a length of web, a hand lever having a mechanically operable trip mechanism and initially connected therethrough for transmitting motion from the hand lever to said driver in a direction to move the driver in a spring biasing direction toward its advanced position and thereby to bias said spring, and means whereby the mechanically operable trip mechanism is relieved following a predetermined advance of said driver in a spring biasing direction, whereby said driver is freed from said lever for movement subject to the bias of said spring toward the retracted position of the driver and in a direction for dispensing a length of web.
 2. A dispenser according to claim 1 in which said manually operable means comprises a lever and the driver for actuating the feed roll includes a rack with which said spring is connected, and a pinion connected with said feed roll and meshing with said rack.
 3. A dispenser according to claim 2 in which said lever is provided with a pawl engaged with said rack for advancing the rack in a spring tensioning direction, said lever having its fulcrum so located with respect to the rack as to disengage said pawl after a predetermined advance of the rack, thereby allowing the spring to retract the rack for actuation of said feed roll.
 4. A combination according to claim 1 in which said spring is connected with the lever and the rack and there is a pulley over which an intermediate portion of the spring is trained, the movement of the lever in motion transmitting engagement with the rack serving to tension the spring by pulling both ends thereof.
 5. A dispenser for a paper web provided at intervals with transverse rows of perforations upon which the web is severable into sheets, said dispenser comprising a cabinet having a dispensing opening and means for supporting a supply roll of said web, means including a feed roller between the supply roll and said opening for advancing toward said opening a predetermined length of said web from said supply roll, spring actuated means for mechanically advancing the feed roller in a web dispensing direction, a manually operable lever, and a motion transmitting connection from the lever to the actuating means and including a lever operated means for moving the actuating means in a direction to tension the spring, and trip means for releasing the actuating means after a predetermined movement in a spring tensioning direction, the return of said actuating means under tension of said spring operating said feed roller through a predetermined rotation for advance of a predetermined length of said web.
 6. A dispenser according to claim 5 in which the actuating means comprises a slide having rack means and a pinion meshing with the rack teeth and connected with said feed roller, the connection of said pinion to the feed roller including an overrunning clutch.
 7. A dispenser according to claim 6 in which the lever is provided with a pawl movable on an arcuate path which for a portion of its travel engages a roller with which the slide is provided, the pawl ultimately clearing said roller and allowing the slide to return independently of the lever for actuation of the feed roller through said clutch.
 8. A dispenser comprising a feed roller provided with an overrunning clutch, a pinion mounted to drive the feed roller through said clutch, a rack meshing with the pinion, guide means providing a way along which the rack is reciprocable, a lever having a fulcrum at one side of the way and a manually operable portion at the other side of the way, a spring connected with said rack and biasing it toward a retracted position, and means comprising a pawl on said lever for moving the rack from said retracted position against the bias of said spring, the rack being provided with a roller in the path of movement of said pawl and engaged thereby as said lever is actuated to move the rack, and means mounting the roller for limited movement independently of the rack, said pawl being disengageable from the roller at a predetermined point in the movement of said lever about its fulcrum, and spring means positioned to be engaged by the roller in the course of movement of said rack away from its retracted position, said roller being biased by said spring means preliminary to disengagement of said roller from said pawl and being adapted to effect independent movement of the roller to a position above the pawl preliminary to the return of the rack toward its retracted position. 